By Kevin Dowd

At long last, after a season’s worth of upsets and buzzer beaters, early-morning practices and long, uncomfortable bus rides, the state tournament is here. Beginning Thursday morning at 9 a.m., it all gets decided on the court.

So we’ll get right down to the last of our previews, which began earlier this week with the Class 2B and Class 1B tournaments in Spokane and continued with the Class 2A and 1A tournaments in Yakima. Now, it’s time for Class 4A and Class 3A, home of the finest teams and players in the state. This is the cream of the crop.

CLASS 4A BOYS

The matchups

Curtis (24-3) vs. Central Valley (20-5), 3:45 p.m.

Kentwood (20-6) vs. Issaquah (21-3), 5:30 p.m.

Lewis & Clark (20-6) vs. Federal Way (26-0), 7:15 p.m.

Union (22-2) vs. Gonzaga Prep (23-1), 9 p.m.

Continue reading “High School Basketball State Tournament Preview, Part III: Tacoma”

Imagine being Scott Kelly, the astronaut who on Tuesday night touched down his landing craft in Kazakhstan after spending the previous 340 days aboard the International Space Station. It was longer than any human being has ever been in space. Imagine that. Try to remember last March 25, the day Kelly launched, how long ago that feels, and remember everything you’ve done since then: All the people you’ve seen, all the meals you’ve eaten, all the times you’ve looked at a tree, or felt sand beneath your feet, or the wind on your face, all the nights you’ve slept in your own wonderful bed. Imagine if that whole time, all those many days and nights, you were instead orbiting 250 miles up above the Earth, moving at nearly five miles per second, encased in a hunk of metal.

Five thousand #sunrises during my #YearInSpace. Wish I could have seen them all! pic.twitter.com/s2Slz6NH4n

— Scott Kelly (@StationCDRKelly) February 27, 2016

Continue reading “The Spaceman”

We’re back with a plan of attack for our second state tourney preview, heading now to Yakima — the Palm Springs of Washington — where the venerable old SunDome will play host to the Class 2A and Class 1A brackets.

While there are fairly clear favorites in 1A for both the boys and girls, 2A is as wide open as any classification in the state. For both genders, there are four or five different teams that have a real chance to bring home the largest piece of hardware.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. More on that to come.

If you missed Monday’s preview of the Class 2B and 1B tournaments, it can be found here. Check back on Wednesday for part three, taking a look at the big school action in the Tacoma Dome.

Continue reading “High School Basketball State Tournament Preview, Part II: Yakima”

In three cities across the state of Washington this Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, a grand total of twelve basketball teams will be crowned state champions. It’s a crazy 72 hours of hoops ahead, with 96 teams in action and well over a hundred games scheduled to be played. It can all be a little much for even the most seasoned rooter to keep track of.

So to set the stage, we’re gonna bust out a three-part preview that breaks down all the boys and girls brackets for all six classifications, analyzing the first-round matchups, highlighting some of the teams and players to watch, and outlining a few key storylines. We’ll kick things off with the Class 2B and Class 1B tournaments, to be played at the Spokane Arena, with Class 2A and 1A to follow on Tuesday and Class 4A and 3A on Wednesday.

Usual disclaimer: I haven’t ever seen the majority of these teams play and don’t claim to be an expert on the ins and outs of the Class 1B scene. Many predictions herein will be wrong. This is supposed to be fun.

Continue reading “High School Basketball State Tournament Preview, Part 1: Spokane”

Twice on Saturday, the Kalama Chinooks jumped out to a double-digit first-half lead over the Seattle Academy Cardinals. A stingy defense set the tone, and an inside force named Esary handled much of the early scoring. But as the second half progressed, the Cardinals began to inch their way back into things, forcing the Chinooks into turnovers and converting those turnovers into points. Seattle Academy had its chances, in one of the games drawing as close as a single point. But the Cardinals never again took the lead. And when the final whistles blew, both times it was the Chinooks who rushed the floor and celebrated, a trip to the Class 1A state tournament in Yakima now on the docket for next week.

On a whirlwind day in Washington prep sports, some confusion could be forgiven about the déjà vu doubleheader at Rogers High School in Puyallup. But there were no hijinks afoot — just two boys and girls teams who each finished second in their respective district tournaments, and who were thus seeded into the same spots on the regional bracket. The WIAA ain’t perfect, but it thankfully managed to schedule the two games back-to-back, the girls at 2 p.m. and the boys at 4. The Chinooks are an old friend from my stint at TDN who rarely venture into my new neck of the woods, so the occasion seemed liked a good one to go say hello.

Continue reading “Kalama-rama: Chinooks Thrive, Then Survive To Make State”

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As of this writing we are less than 24 hours away from the start of Washington state regional basketball action, and so we come at last to the fifth and final stanza of this extensive examination. It’s time to look at Class 4A, the biggest schools in the state, and make our best guesses as to who will qualify for the state tournament March 3 through March 5 in the Tacoma Dome.

Last year’s 4A champs have taken divergent paths. The Federal Way boys are undefeated and top-ranked, back and perhaps better than ever. The Gonzaga Prep girls, meanwhile, are nowhere to be found in the final sixteen, their season already over. Last year’s runner-up on the girls side, Inglemoor, has also already been eliminated, meaning we’re guaranteed two fresh finalists.

At five schools are the boys and girls teams both still kicking: Bellarmine Prep, Central Valley, Curtis, Kamiak, and Lewis & Clark. All five except Kamiak have a decent chance on getting both groups to state, but it would be a major stunner if anyone pulled off the sweep.

And so with our usual pleasantries out of the way, let’s dive in. For those joining the preview party late, here are the previous four parts, covering the other five classifications in the state:

Continue reading “High School Basketball Regionals Preview, Part V”

We’re now getting into the larger classifications in our weeklong lookahead to the Washington state basketball regionals, today predicting all sixteen games that will be played this Friday and Saturday by teams in Class 3A. This is personally exciting because it means I have actually watched a decent chunk of the teams I’m writing about play.

The defending state champions are Garfield on the boys side and Lynnwood on the girls, both of whom have very serious chances to defend their crowns (although Rainier Beach and Bellevue, respectively, could pose stiff challenges). Seven schools — Auburn Mountainview, Bellevue, Edmonds-Woodway, Kamiakin, Lincoln, Rainier Beach, and Wilson — are still alive in both the boys and girls tournaments. Bellevue has the best shot of anyone to sweep, but it would be a serious surprise considering the Wolverines boys fell to Garfield by 30 just last Saturday.

Continue reading “High School Basketball Regionals Preview, Part IV”

The march toward this weekend’s Washington state basketball regionals continues with a third installment of the most comprehensive preview guide you’ll find on the internet. Today, it’s Class 2A’s turn, where the defending champion Clarkston boys and Mark Morris girls are both back to defend their crowns — although one of the pair has a much better chance at repeating than the other.

The Bantams and Monarchs are two of the eight schools whose boys and girls teams will both be in action. The others: Lynden, Liberty (Issaquah), Ellensburg, Shorecrest, North Kitsap, and River Ridge. Of that rather large group, Lynden would seem to have the best chance of pulling off a sweep in Yakima. The Lions boys are ranked No. 2 and the girls are No. 3; in a strange twist, both will face Liberty this weekend. An under-the-radar pick who could make noise in both genders: Shorecrest. And that’s not just because Shoreline is an exemplary suburb.

We kicked the week off by previewing Class 2B and 1B here, continued with Class 1A here, and will finish things off with the big schools in the coming days. But first things first.

Continue reading “High School Basketball Regionals Preview, Part III”

Our weeklong preview of the state basketball round of sixteen continues today with Class 1A, where the King’s boys and girls are coming off a sweep of the state titles last spring. They’re one of six schools this year to advance both genders into the regional round, along with Cashmere, Kalama, Lynden Christian, Seattle Academy, and Zillah.

The 1A ranks also bring us some of the wonkiest matchups the WIAA can dish out, including a meeting between the boys teams who were ranked first and second in the most-recent AP poll and a matchup of two more top-five teams on the girls side. In both instances, it’s a case of one district being particularly stacked with high-quality teams, something the seeding process does not take into account. That leads to a team like the Lynden Christian boys — the defending runners-up and a team that spent most of the year ranked No. 1 — entering regionals as the No. 3 seed out of their district tournament, behind King’s and Seattle Academy. Which doesn’t make a lot of sense, but I digress. On the bright side of this whole hullabaloo, I suppose we can appreciate that there will be some seriously high-level games contested this weekend.

You can click here to check out Part I of our series, which covers Class 2B and Class 1B. We’ll cover the rest of the classifications in the coming days, so come check out the site later this week if that sort of thing tickles your fancy.

Continue reading “High School Basketball Regionals Preview, Part II”